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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3300834, member: 93416&quot;]Another quibble, but a crucial one in this context. The (Islamic) dinar/mithacal was c. 4.25g and seems to be derive from (the Seleucid version) of the ancient Attic drachm. Further, that it seems to have been remembered in the territory of the old Roman empire, where it replaced the Roman/Byzantine gold solidus, nominally of 4.54g. Meanwhile the Sasanid silver drachm weighed c. 4.13g.</p><p><br /></p><p>Amongst the confusion of the early ‘Arab’ population of the new caliphate - it looks quite possible that 4.54g, 4.25g and 4.13g all got called ‘a mithcal’. Of course, the minority who knew the difference might make a profit out of that knowledge….</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>As the author of the&nbsp; linked text&nbsp; pointed out – the problem with this text is that it was written about 500 years after the crucial events it describes. And there are no text at all less than 150 years after those events.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is good for numismatists maybe, since the only hard evidence we have is things like the coins themselves! What follows is largely rooted in Steve Album’s (sensational) Checklist 2011 3rd edition – but with a caveat.</p><p><br /></p><p>Up until about 825 AD we have lots of Islamic dirhems, and they were clearly intended to weight c. 2.93g. This determination (actually 2.92g) was published in London in 1967. I checked it myself, other UK collectors checked it, then Lutz Ilisch in Germany checked it. Everybody over here agreed it. I think Steve Album rather begrudgingly agreed it by 2011 – but he writes things like “it weighed the canonical weight of 2.97g or a bit less”. I am going to take that as saying c. 2.93g.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now the Ibn al-Athir text cited above makes the dirhem c. 2.97g (7/10 x c. 4.25 = c. 2.97g). The problem is Ibn al-Athir is maybe relying on sources from at best about 870 AD.</p><p><br /></p><p>The chain of actual of events (taken from Album) seem to be – the dirhem weight c. 2.93g down to c. 825 AD. Then, during a rebellion, production of dirhems almost stopped. Plentiful supply of dirhems began again round about 875 AD. But now they did not weigh anything exact at all. From now on payments were made not by count - but by weight. What we do have is thousands of copper weights, often of 5 or 10 dirhems. And the weight of that dirhem – taken from the weights – <b>is</b> rather exactly 2.97g.</p><p><br /></p><p>So from the objects (coins and weights) it seem that historians around 870 AD have shunted what happened around 825 AD back to 700 AD. A kind of re-write of historical fact.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think the rebellions associated with these 825-875 AD changes were led by Kharijites, and I think it fair to say their ideas were roughly along anarchist/libertarian lines. If you add to that the sort of ideas about money which that kind of modern writer (say Rothbard) holds, the whole matter starts to make some sort of sense…..</p><p><br /></p><p>Time to stop for today I think - criticism welcome.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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